State Key Laboratory of Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China; Guangxi Key Laboratory of Beibu Gulf Marine Resources, Environment and Sustainable Development, Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Ecosystem and Bioresource, Fourth Institute of Oceanography, MNR, Beihai, China.
State Key Laboratory of Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China.
Sci Total Environ. 2024 Dec 1;954:176554. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.176554. Epub 2024 Sep 28.
Tidal marshes globally face escalating threats from rising sea levels. As critical determinants of tidal marsh platform elevation maintenance, the contributions of marsh soil compaction and subsidence (SCS) are often overshadowed by vertical accretion (VA). Here, we reveal the pervasive presence of the SCS within tidal marshes and its driving forces. Our results demonstrate that while vegetated regions can organize more efficient sediment accumulation, thereby promoting marsh elevation rise, they also contribute to an increase in SCS occurrences, which somewhat hinders marsh elevation growth. Through the established empirical model of SCS, we found that the amount of SCS in the investigated marshes with vegetation cover is twice that of marshes without vegetation. Therefore, from the perspective of SCS, it is imperative to account for the detrimental impact of vegetation on marsh elevation, as we have uncovered that this oversight may lead to an underestimation of the vulnerability of the investigated tidal marsh ecosystem by approximately 13.55 %. We also find that the adversarial game between vegetation colonization and sea-level rise governs the SCS in the self-organization of tidal marshes, but the intensifying inundation from sea-level rise ultimately determines the fate of the SCS. Our study emphasizes the crucial role of the game between sea-level rise and vegetation colonization in the self-organized elevation maintenance of tidal marshes.
全球潮汐沼泽正面临海平面上升带来的日益严重的威胁。作为维持潮汐沼泽平台抬升的关键决定因素，沼泽土壤压实和沉降（SCS）的贡献往往被垂直加积（VA）所掩盖。在这里，我们揭示了 SCS 在潮汐沼泽中的普遍存在及其驱动力。我们的研究结果表明，虽然植被区可以组织更有效的沉积物堆积，从而促进沼泽抬升，但它们也会导致 SCS 发生的增加，这在一定程度上阻碍了沼泽的抬升。通过建立的 SCS 经验模型，我们发现，有植被覆盖的调查沼泽中的 SCS 量是没有植被的沼泽的两倍。因此，从 SCS 的角度来看，必须考虑到植被对沼泽抬升的不利影响，因为我们发现，这种忽视可能导致对调查潮汐沼泽生态系统脆弱性的低估约 13.55%。我们还发现，植被定殖与海平面上升之间的对抗性博弈控制着潮汐沼泽的 SCS 自组织，但海平面上升带来的加剧淹没最终决定了 SCS 的命运。我们的研究强调了海平面上升和植被定殖之间的博弈在潮汐沼泽自组织抬升维持中的关键作用。
